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The survey indicated the most common places for carrying out the top three work activities were the classroom, home and private office, if the teacher had access to an office (but this was rare for the classroom teacher). Discipline and welfare was dealt with in either the classroom or in more public areas outside, if an office was not available to the teacher. The most common places to think creatively were: personal classroom (when empty after hours), home or private office (usually after hours). There were differences between the places named by teachers and executives (with no or small teaching loads). Overwhelmingly, teachers named the classroom as the location for carrying out the most common tasks. Executives named an office or a staffroom.

What emerged was a preference for working alone and away from distractions or interruptions. This is challenging for designing workspaces given the emphasis placed upon collaboration and team meetings in many pedagogies. The survey also highlighted the difficulty a classroom teacher faces when trying to locate a suitable location to conduct a confidential or disciplinary conversation.

Sharing spaces can be challenging and the same things seem to drive people crazy in most workplaces.

What are the time-wasting factors in a teacher’s workday?

Most adult workplace surveys ask about factors that reduce productivity. Less than 10% of the teachers said they experienced any downtime. After talking with some of the respondents after they had completed the survey, I wish I could have measured the intensity of the key strikes when teachers were ticking off the time wasting factors during their workday!

In my survey, respondents were asked to tick up to five factors that they considered are the most likely to waste their time in any given week. The top time wasting factors were:

The link between reliable information technology and productivity should come as no surprise but it is important to note two of the top time wasting factors did specifically relate to technology. It is also of note that loss of work time was linked to the actions of repeating, correcting and enduring delays – this is not dissimilar to findings in other workplaces. After the top four factors shown above, the next most common factors linked to downtime were walking to get information or a resource and searching for paperwork.

A Mind the Gap reflection on my results – Until we have an understanding of what constitutes a teacher’s workload, designing the ideal workplace may fall short of what is required. I believe future designs for work places and loads will need to place a high value on providing access to both people and locations, as well as a focus on human-scale solutions that promote an inclusive and democratic approach to the dispersal of resources. If we consider the issues raised by these teachers in the light of the looming deadline for universal registration of teachers in Australia and the introduction of the professional development framework, we have less time than we think to tackle the question of workloads and the type of workplace each school can offer its teachers.

After many years researching the role physical learning environments play in the creation of learning environments in schools, I have been turning my attention to schools as teachers’ workplaces. My goal is to develop a current and deep knowledge of contemporary workplace trends for adults, especially those who work in innovative, creative and collaborative work environments. As education moves away from the factory/industrial model that dominated 20th Century schools in the West, teachers need to be viewed as innovators, knowledge creators, designers and curators of learning environments. They are also working in a world saturated with technology and myriad ways of connecting with learners and colleagues. Surely, this calls for an evaluation of the places where teachers work?

I have also been considering how we could increase teacher effectiveness by using what we know about teacher motivation, their current workloads and workplaces. During the past year, I have looked at the design of adult workspaces (other than in schools since there was very little happening there in terms of new adult work environments). At the same time, I have hunted down current research on teacher motivation, satisfaction and workloads. I have been asking the questions: What exactly do teachers do and why do they do it?. There is a reasonable amount on teachers during their first five years in the profession but much less on the mid to late career teachers, who have stayed working in schools.

There is little on what actually constitutes a teacher’s workload – we have some idea on the tasks teachers complete. In Australia, the new national Professional Standards go some way to defining and simplifying the identity of the teacher as a professional, regardless of the sector and school context. These standards for teachers comprise seven standards that outline what teachers should know and be able to do. On thing that clearly emerges, is the complexity and diversity of this work and the expectation that it develops over many years and through many experiences. It is also important to consider the differences between K-6, K-12 and 7-12 work environments since each reflect different needs, different physical environments, different mandatory requirements and different traditions for providing staff spaces. It would be difficult to imagine one workplace design or one professional description would fit all teachers across the K-12 spectrum.

In order to understand how teachers view their workloads and workspaces, I recently conducted a survey of teachers that captured what a sample of Australian teachers were saying about their current workloads and work environments. The survey covered two aspects of the contemporary teacher experience: the nature of the teacher’s workload in a school and how this work was carried out. The majority of the respondents are from non-government K-12 schools in New South Wales, but the sample also included a wider group of teaching professionals. Nearly all of the respondents were teachers, who spent most or all of their time in the classroom (a total of 84% of the sample). Two-thirds of the respondents worked in schools that had been established prior to 2000. More than half of the sample worked in schools that had more than 400 students. The sample is described in the following table.

David Gillespie’s new book, Free schools – How to get a great education for your kids without spending a fortune, is a valuable perspective on contemporary education from the parent’s point-of-view. Although Gillespie spent a great deal of time researching the current educational landscape, which the average parent might not necessarily do themselves, he maintains his parental perspective by focusing on what matters to a parent looking for the best schooling option for his children. School leaders are well advised to consider the book because Gillespie offers a systematic way for parents to evaluate and select a school for their child. It is supercharged advice from one parent to thousands of other parents and educators should take the opportunity of listening in on this conversation.

In Part 2 of his book, Gillespie articulates what matters and what does not matter when it comes to finding the right school for your child. The items that do not matter as much as parents might think are: gender-based schools; high fees; small classes and multi-age classes. While small classes obviously provide more opportunity for one-on-one time for each child, it does come at a financial cost. Single gender schools do not cause any significant academic advantages unless coupled with selective enrollments that target the most capable students and stream according to ability. The value added items a significant income can buy within a school (such as individual technology and impressive facilities) are recognised as making the task of learning and teaching more comfortable, varied and easier, but Gillespie says the research still points to the fact these items will not have the same impact on student achievement as effective teachers and principals will have.

The book concludes the quality of teaching in the classroom and the leadership offered by the principal matter a great deal more than any other factors. However, there are eleven other things that matter, once you have established the school provides effective leadership and teaching (Gillespie, 2014, pages 165-6).

Learning to learn is important;

Extracurricular activities (especially music) should be on offer;

Languages other than English should be part of the curriculum (especially for primary schools);

Look for schools that accelerate gifted students (if your child is a genius);

If your child has special needs, know exactly what resources are available.

Running through the list of eleven things that matter, in addition to the two non-negotiables of teacher effectiveness and principal leadership, you have a reasonable summary of what happens in schools. By the time I had finished reading the book, I was already running through the responses I would give parents who happened to use this list to test the quality and appropriateness of my school for their children. It would be a good exercise to consider the criteria Gillespie shares and test out what your school prioritises. If your list is different to this one, then you may still need to be ready to argue your case against this very persuasive book and parents who arrive at their interviews armed with this checklist.

Reference: David Gillespie: Free schools – How to get a great education for your kids without spending a fortune, MacMillan, 2014.

An article recently appeared on the HBR Blog Network (Know What Kind of Careerist You Are by B Groysbery & R Abrahams – 25 March 2014). The authors revisited the framework suggested by a management academic in the 1980s. C Brooklyn Deer proposed five career orientations that tend to shift over time and according to circumstances, and these orientations can be linked to satisfaction. Rather than locking people into one personality type, this framework recognises change and variation throughout a person’s career.

The five orientations are:

getting secure – seeking regularity and predictability by fitting in with workplace norms;

getting ahead – focused on promotions, increasing scope of their work and authority;

getting free – focused on autonomy and self-direction;

getting high – seeking work that provides greater stimulation, purpose and engagement;

getting balanced – desiring a bit of all the orientations and seeking both challenge and fulfillment without sacrificing a personal life. (While this is the most common orientation, Deer says only some people are genuinely motivated by this orientation.)

This framework challenges me to think about how could we design teacher workplaces to respond to these orientations. Can we rearrange the design of our physical workplace (commonly referred to as ‘the school”) to offer opportunities for staff to spend their day in ways that offer security, freedom, balance and stimulation. The work environment can also be designed to offer a “get ahead” orientation by keeping teachers and leaders in daily contact with one another and new opportunities.

Here are some suggestions for teacher workspaces and workplace practices:

Getting secure: allocated storage space and work areas for focused, individual work (can be shared but at least provide reserved zones); food preparation and eating areas sufficient for all staff to use in peak times; core classrooms; availability of all relevant policy documents; clear guidelines on procedure and process; structured communication network that is consistently maintained.

Getting ahead: avoid isolating faculties and departments through poor design; consider placing office space for executive teachers in different areas within the school; use shared or less formal spaces for meetings; create readily available spaces for co-operative and collaborative work; increase opportunities for teachers to see leadership at work; “advertise” opportunities for participation in new projects and roles in a systematic way.

Getting free and getting high: provide the teacher with the same space opportunities that you would for students – a mix of spaces where you can focus on work alone, work with others on a shared project and meet-up with others when seeking inspiration, assistance or resources for your individual projects; some flexibility with work hours or “coming into the office”; fast wireless connectivity; mobile technologies; robust IT network and access to support staff.

Getting balanced: All of the above, but to make balance achievable a few specific ways of doing things in the workplace would be helpful. Organise annual discussions that identify the current orientation and, if possible, translate it into the new year’s timetable, workload and general expectations. Systems for booking spaces and resources. Consistency in workplace processes and systems, including carefully managed and resourced IT. And lastly, communication that is democratic, timely and explicit.

You do not need to wait for a new building project before implementing some of these ideas. Most teacher workplaces have these spaces in some form and number, so leadership could start at any time to build these orientations into the workplace. The thing to remember is to be deliberate and purposeful in the allocation and use of those spaces.

PlaceShaping Project – tackling the why and what is happening in workplaces

If you are reading this blog, then you would already be aware of my PlaceShaping project and my research trip to London last month. I focused on workplaces that offered collaborative or co-working spaces, and found they are not all the same and the differences go beyond the physical facilities and access.

So far I have formed some initial thoughts on the future trends in collaborative adult spaces and which models might offer the most to the design of future teacher workspaces.

#1. Hot-desking in itself does not create collaboration – it supports a focus on individual tasks rather than co-working or collaboration. It could also generate a competitive view of resources and heighten territorial behaviours rather than breaking them down. It’s key value is in the financial savings made by increasing use of office resources and facilitates moves to downsize the amount of space used by workstations.

#2. Hot-desking is concerned primarily with access to location and things. Co-working has a focus on access to location and people.

*Programme of events to build connections and skills appropriate to business goals

informal workspace in a collaborative environment

#5. Styling in the non-corporate flexible workspaces is whimsical, eclectic and often reflects skills/interests of founding membership and ethos of businesses the space attracts. There is a focus on human-scale with inclusive and democratic approach to the dispersal of resources.

Things & trends I am noticing –

Creative, challenging, complex workspaces would thrive if there was …

someone to curate the space

someone to maintain the space

someone to host the space

strategic layouts with space for movement between people and activities and “zones”

Last week I presented a session at the NSW ReLearn 2013 conference of CEFPI Australasia on this very topic. The questions of what types of activities need to be supported in an adult workspace and what is the work of a teacher framed my presentation. I believe it is time we should be defining the work of a contemporary teacher and then designing for their specific needs as classroom educators and organisational employees. Since the session was well received by both educators and educational facilities designers, I thought I would share it through this blog.

As an experienced educator in school environments, I am challenged by the task of defining the work of a teacher, even though I spend a sizable part of the year involved in defining staff roles, interviewing for new teachers and determining staffing allocations. I can write pages that list the tasks and responsibilities each teacher actually does in any given year but I wonder sometimes whether this is what a teacher should be doing within the contemporary educational context. And there is the tricky debate of whether teaching is a profession. If it is not, it is unclear what it would be instead. I am often trying to prioritise the workplace goals of productivity, organisational culture, flexibility, well-being and engagement in the context of myriad external agendas and accountabilities.

Why should we rethink the staffroom within schools?

I can think of a number of reasons why we should rethink the design of our staffrooms. The standard for staff facilities is based on models of schooling that are rapidly fading. We struggle to define the work of a teacher as we pass from the old industrial model of education to the information and knowledge age. In the past twenty years, teachers have been viewed as facilitators, co-learners, mentors, guides and so on. The classroom, both virtual and physical, is adopting new ways of working and learning for students but the staffroom has not changed for decades. There is a significant gap in the research literature and reasons why staff facilities are not studied is not clear, but suggestions are: staff facilities are not a financial priority, these spaces are not overtly student focused space and attitudes to teachers’ work.

Traditionally the 20th Century approach has been the provision of one common room for all staff (one space for all teacher activities from meals to meetings to storage to preparation – both formal and informal functions) but not necessarily for non-teaching staff (practical and status and cultural reasons). In addition to the common space, secondary departments evolved additional faculty based rooms. Patterns of the common room usage vary but the deserted common room is not unusual. Lack of use is not just based on space appeal. The creation of formal or adhoc staffrooms fragment staff into smaller independently defined groups that are strong within themselves and do not identify with the whole staff as strongly. Therefore, the incentive to come together in one staffroom is diminished. When a common room is introduced as an additional resource the space is more likely to be used by the “baseless” staff like aides, caretakers or K-6 staff on release periods than the teaching staff who already have an established faculty base. Many building programmes have formalised the staff dispersal, especially in secondary departments with various justifications such as providing passive supervision of students, responding to request to be closer to teaching rooms, increasing opportunities to work with subject colleagues. However, these are to date untested and the effect assumed.

Part of the problem with designing effective workspaces for teachers is defining the work of the profession. In Australia, the new Australian Professional Standards do define and simplify the identity of the teacher as a professional, regardless of sector and context. The standards for teachers comprise seven standards which outline what teachers should know and be able to do.

In addition to considering the standards, we should be looking at the dominant trends in pedagogy. The classroom and pedagogy emerging in the Web2 world is clearly not the industrial model of “talk and chalk” and exit examinations. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume the work of a teacher would be evolving as a result of these changes. It is also important to consider the differences between K-6, K-12 and 7-12 work environments – each reflect different needs, different physical environments, different mandatory requirements and different traditions for providing staff spaces. It would be difficult to imagine one design will fit all teachers across the K-12 spectrum.

A strong argument for rethinking the staffroom are the reasons for dissatisfaction as expressed by teachers through various studies. A few are summarised below and give an general idea of problems that might be influenced by the work environment.

Workload and Burnout in Australian Teachers – UniSA August 2013

The teaching profession is prominent in occupational stress and burnout literature. A comparison of 26 occupations in 2005 found teachers were amongst the highest in self-reported work related stress (similar professions included ambulance, social and healthcare) and sixth lowest score for job satisfaction. This study in late 2012 of 1,288 teachers reported a high work/life interference, low satisfaction with work/life balance but a high commitment to staying in profession (but still only 54% satisfied with current job and 37% have thoughts about quitting).

88% primary teachers and 86% secondary teachers are overall either satisfied or very satisfied with their current job (improvement of 3% since 2007) – highest areas of dissatisfaction were related to amount of administration tasks and clerical workload of teachers.

However, despite overall positive feelings of job satisfaction , more than half of all teachers surveyed were unsure how much longer they intend continuing working in schools (only 7-10% had any definite plans to leave permanently). Top reasons for leaving prior to retirement were better opportunities outside schools and workload too heavy.

MetLife Survey of the American Teacher 2013

Teacher’s job satisfaction declined 23% in five years since 2008 with only 39% of teachers reported they were very satisfied (lowest since 1987) – a drop of 5% since 2012. Least satisfied teachers worked in schools where budgets had been cut and who had less time for collaboration with colleagues and access to professional learning than other teachers/schools.

In response to the question of teachers leave the profession, the poll found poor working conditions was a reason. The majority agreed that supportive leadership, time for collaboration, access to high quality curriculum and resources, clean and safe buildings, and relevant professional development were even more important than higher salaries.

As soon as you start focusing on something, you begin to notice that object/idea/group of people/way of doing things everywhere. Obviously, it has been there in the same quantity and distribution but now these details mean something more.

The ultimate “pop-up” – in Trafalgar Square

Since looking exclusively at adult workspaces, I have noticed the ideas present in coworking spaces popping up all over the place. Even the idea of “pop-up”s have exploded on to the scene – the year before last this phrase was new and edgy, now it seems to just signal temporary. Unfortunately, such is the fate of new ideas becoming mainstream and less than what might have been originally intended. In the old waiting room in Brighton railway station, there is a new combination of cafe, workspace and waiting room. The styling is the pleasing blend of industrial vintage and tech – the coffee is barrista brewed, the food a bit gastro-pub and the sitting area provides variety for people waiting and wanting to either relax or work. Of particular note, is the amount of floor space given over to just standing and circulation room. It would be easy to pack in more tables and chairs, but that would lock the space into one type of use over others.